There are many traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, and this Shrine Room represents the Kagyu.
Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room (Kagyu tradition iteration), at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City, 2024. The Shrine Room is supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Namita and Arun Saraf, and by generous donations from the Museum’s Board of Trustees, individual donors, and members. Speakers: Dr. Elena Pakhoutova, Senior Curator, Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and Dr. Steven Zucker
Often called the “heart of the Rubin,” the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room displays art and ritual objects as they would in a private household shrine—a space used for offerings, devotional prayer, rituals, and contemplation. Explore this treasure of the Museum with Senior Curator Dr. Elena Pakhoutova and Dr. Steven Zucker of Smarthistory.
The Shrine Room was on view at the Rubin until the Museum’s closing on October 6, 2024, and will open in June 2025 in a custom space at the Brooklyn Museum as part of a long-term partnership between the two institutions.
The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art has teamed up with Smarthistory to bring you an “up-close” look at select objects from the Rubin’s preeminent collection of Himalayan art. Featuring conversations with senior curators and close-looking at art, this video series is an accessible introduction to the art and material culture of the Tibetan, Himalayan, and Inner Asian regions. Learn about the living traditions and art-making practices of the Himalayas from the past to today.
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0:00:06.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re in the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, standing in front of one of their treasures, the Shrine Room.
0:00:12.9 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: This is often called the heart of the Rubin Museum. Each time it is renewed, it represents different Tibetan Buddhist traditions. This one is representative of the Kagyu traditions.
0:00:26.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: Until I began to look more seriously at Tibetan Buddhism, I assumed that there was a single tradition.
0:00:31.0 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: There are many Buddhist traditions that came to existence over the long history of Tibetan Buddhism. They usually counted four main traditions, which are in the order of their appearance. The Nyingma, which is the ancient tradition, then Sakya, Kagyu, and the youngest, the Gelug tradition.
0:00:51.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: And this is Kagyu, and we can tell that because of the specific iconography that we can see in some of the paintings, as well as some of the sculpture.
0:01:00.0 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: Each Tibetan shrine room would normally have elements that are essential for representation of the Buddhist belief system and worship and ritual, and they are the representations of the Buddha’s mind, such as the images and sculptures of stupas, speech, which are physical books where the Buddha’s word and teachings are written, and Buddha’s body, which is the images that you see of deities, teachers, and the Buddha, of course.
0:01:31.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: The books that you refer to are long individual leaves.
0:01:35.6 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: Tibetan books are modeled after the Sanskrit palm leaf manuscripts that came from India, which were long and narrow, and obviously there is no palm leaves in Tibet. They wrote their books on paper, but they retained this format.
0:01:51.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: And then in the middle of the shrine, we see two stupas.
0:01:54.8 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: Normally stupas are thought about as the representations of the Buddha’s mind, but they’re also representations of the Buddha’s body, just as the images of the physical representations of the Buddha, various deities, important Buddhist teachers in the Kagyu tradition. For Tibetans, a teacher is equal to the Buddha because according to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, we live now in a time where the Buddha is already passed. Only his teachings survive, and those who can transmit his teachings through this uninterrupted lineage of transmission are equal in value to being in the presence of the Buddha. That’s why there are so many portraits of teachers in Tibetan Buddhist traditions. And here we have main representations of the Kagyu teachers, such as Milarepa, who is depicted with the hand raised to his ear.
0:02:50.9 Dr. Steven Zucker: Almost as if he’s listening.
0:02:52.3 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: Sometimes it’s explained that he’s listening to his voice as he recites his poetry or verses of the songs of realization that he composed while meditating in a cave. And another important teacher, considered not specifically only within the Kagyu tradition, but universally respected in Tibetan Buddhist culture, is the Machig Labdrön, is a woman teacher.
0:03:17.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: And that representation seems to me to be more dynamic than some of the other figures that are seated around her.
0:03:24.7 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: She is shown as a goddess or as a dakini in the dance pose while using a double-sided drum, and she’s also holding a skullcap in her left hand. If you look at the images of Vajrayogini, which are on the other side of the shrine, you can see that she is also draped in a similar garment as Machig Labdrön. And also has a skullcap. The implication is that the practice which she is well known for is called severance of ego, and skullcap is a reminder of impermanence, an attachment to one’s body.
0:04:01.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re seeing this Tibetan Buddhist shrine room on 17th Street in Manhattan, but it is in the tradition of the kinds of shrine rooms that you would find in a prosperous home of a family that practices Tibetan Buddhism.
0:04:14.6 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: If I were to make up a story of how all of these objects have been accumulated, it’s that they were treasured over generations. Sometimes when an important event happens, a family or a person could go to a teacher and inquire whether they need to facilitate the positive outcome. And then it may happen that it would be advised that they commission a sculpture or a painting, especially if it’s something towards secular goals. Or if someone passes away, then in order to ensure the person has a good rebirth in the next life, sculptures or paintings of long-life deities would be commissioned. Usnisavijaya, this large sculpture that you see here.
0:05:00.0 Dr. Steven Zucker: So the individual objects then are accumulated over time and sometimes associated with specific events within the life of that family.
0:05:08.3 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: Also, very often when a lay person or anyone who attends a Buddhist initiation ritual, for example, that allows them to study and then practice specific meditation focused on a specific deity, they would commission an image of that deity to be the basis for their visualization practices. But, of course, this is the curated installation that presents the objects how they may have been displayed and used in a traditional Tibetan Buddhist household.
0:05:41.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: Each object can really focus our attention in an individual way. But then there’s a kind of multiplication that results from the amassing of each of these objects.
0:05:52.3 Dr. Elena Pakhoutova: The intent of such a space would be to make it suitable for the deities which are imagined to be residing in each image to be in the place which is worthy of them. So the incense, sound of the rituals, reciting of mantras and prayers, offerings of light and offerings to the five senses are all part of that setup in which the deities are firmly established in the abode which is worthy of their presence.
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